The word culture has many different
meanings. For some it refers to an appreciation of good literature,
music, art, and food. For a biologist, it is likely to be a
colony of bacteria or other microorganisms growing in a nutrient medium in a
laboratory Petri dish. However, for anthropologists and other behavioral
scientists, culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns.
The term was first used in this way by the pioneer English Anthropologist
Edward B. Tylor in his book, Primitive Culture, published in
1871. Tylor said that culture is "that complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and
habits acquired by man as a member of society." Of course, it is not
limited to men. Women possess and create it as well. Since Tylor's
time, the concept of culture has become the central focus of anthropology.

Culture is a powerful human tool for
survival, but it is a fragile
phenomenon. It is constantly changing and easily lost because it exists only in
our minds. Our written languages, governments, buildings, and other man-made
things are merely the products of culture. They are not culture in
themselves. For this reason, archaeologists
can not dig up culture directly in their excavations. The broken pots and other artifacts of
ancient people that they uncover are only material remains that reflect
cultural patterns--they are things that were made and used through cultural
knowledge and skills.

Layers of Culture

There are very likely three
layers or levels of culture that are part of your learned behavior patterns
and perceptions. Most obviously is the body of cultural traditions that
distinguish your specific society. When people speak of Italian, Samoan,
or Japanese culture, they are referring to the shared language, traditions,
and beliefs that set each of these peoples apart from others. In most
cases, those who share your culture do so because they acquired it as they
were raised by parents and other family members who have it.

The second layer of culture that may
be part of your identity is a subculture. In complex, diverse societies
in which people have come from many different parts of the world, they often
retain much of their original cultural traditions. As a result, they are likely to be part of an identifiable subculture
in their new society.
The shared cultural traits of subcultures set them apart from the rest of
their society. Examples of easily identifiable subcultures in the
United States include ethnic groups such as Vietnamese Americans, African Americans, and Mexican Americans. Members of each of these subcultures
share a common identity, food tradition, dialect or language, and other
cultural traits that come from their common ancestral background and
experience. As the cultural differences between members of a subculture
and the dominant national culture blur and eventually disappear, the
subculture ceases to exist except as a group of people who claim a common
ancestry. That is generally the case with German Americans and Irish
Americans in the United States today. Most of them identify themselves as Americans first.
They also see themselves as being part of the
cultural mainstream of the nation.

These Cuban American
women in Miami, Florida
have a shared subculture
identity that is reinforced
through their language,
food, and other traditions

The third layer of culture consists
of cultural universals. These are learned behavior patterns that
are shared by all of humanity collectively. No matter where people live
in the world, they share these universal traits. Examples of such "human
cultural" traits include:

1.

communicating with a verbal language consisting of a
limited set of sounds and grammatical rules for constructing sentences

2.

using age and gender to classify people (e.g.,
teenager, senior citizen, woman, man)

3.

classifying people based on marriage and descent
relationships and having kinship terms to refer to
them (e.g., wife,
mother, uncle, cousin)

4.

raising children in some sort of family setting

5.

having a sexual division of labor (e.g., men's work
versus women's work)

6.

having a concept of privacy

7.

having rules to regulate sexual behavior

8.

distinguishing between good and bad behavior

9.

having some sort of body ornamentation

10.

making jokes and playing games

11.

having art

12.

having some sort of leadership roles for the
implementation of community decisions

While all cultures have these and possibly
many
other universal traits, different cultures have developed their own specific
ways of carrying out or expressing them. For instance, people in deaf
subcultures frequently use their hands to communicate with sign language
instead of verbal language. However, sign languages have grammatical
rules just as verbal ones do.

Culture and Society

Culture and society
are not the same
thing. While cultures are complexes of learned behavior patterns and
perceptions,
societies are groups of interacting organisms. People are not the only
animals that have societies. Schools of fish, flocks of birds, and hives
of bees are societies. In the case of humans, however, societies are
groups of people who directly or indirectly interact with each other.
People in human societies also generally perceive that their society is
distinct from other societies in terms of shared traditions and expectations.

While human societies and cultures
are not the same thing, they are inextricably connected because culture is
created and transmitted to others in a society. Cultures are not the
product of lone individuals. They are the continuously evolving products
of people interacting with each other. Cultural patterns such as
language and politics make no sense except in terms of the interaction of people. If
you were the only human on earth, there would be no need for language or government.

Is Culture Limited to Humans?

Non-human culture?This orangutan mother is
using a specially prepared
stick to "fish out" food from
a crevice. She learned this
skill and is now teaching it
to her child who is hanging
on her shoulder and intently
watching.

There is a difference of opinion in
the behavioral sciences about whether or not we are the only animal that
creates and uses culture. The answer to this question depends on how
narrow culture is defined. If it is used broadly to refer to a complex of
learned behavior patterns, then it is clear that we are not alone in creating
and using culture. Many other animal species teach their young what they
themselves learned in order to survive. This is especially true of the
chimpanzees and other relatively intelligent apes and monkeys. Wild
chimpanzee mothers typically teach their children about several hundred food
and medicinal plants. Their children also have to learn about the
dominance hierarchy and the social rules within their communities. As
males become teenagers, they acquire hunting skills from adults. Females
have to learn how to nurse and care for their babies. Chimpanzees even
have to learn such basic skills as how to perform sexual intercourse.
This knowledge is not hardwired into their brains at birth. They are
all learned patterns of behavior just as they are for humans.